Latest / Influencer Marketing with Fexingo: Creators, Sponsorships, and Modern Endorsement Deals / Why Influencer Contracts Now Include AI Clone Clauses
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, I want to ask you something. If a brand comes to you tomorrow and says, 'We love your content, we want to license your likeness for an ai generated version of you to use in ads for the next five years,' what's your first question? Luna: My first question is — how much? But my second question, the one I'd actually need answered before I signed anything, is where does that digital version of me end and where do I begin? Can they use it after we stop working together? Lucas: That's exactly the question that's reshaping influencer contracts right now. And it's not hypothetical. There's a specific clause that's started showing up in seven-figure sponsorship deals — I'm going to call it the AI clone clause — and it's becoming the most negotiated paragraph in the entire agreement. Luna: Let me guess — it's about whether the brand gets to keep using your digital twin after the campaign ends, even if you've moved on or your personal brand has shifted direction. Lucas: Exactly. And it's even trickier than that. Because once a brand has a high-quality 3D scan of your face and a voice model trained on thirty minutes of your speech, they don't need you anymore. They can generate fresh content with 'you' in it for years. So the clause isn't just about permission — it's about termination of that permission. Do you have the right to pull the plug, and how fast? Luna: I've heard of a few big beauty deals that fell apart over this exact issue. One talent lawyer I follow, Maya Chen, posted about a negotiation where the brand wanted 'perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license' to the creator's digital twin. The creator's team pushed back hard, and eventually they settled on a two-year term with a kill switch. Lucas: Maya Chen is exactly who I was going to mention. She's a talent lawyer based in LA, and she's been at the centre of half a dozen of these negotiations in the past six months. She told me that clause — the perpetual use one — is the single biggest point of friction right now. Brands argue that they're investing in the infrastructure to create the digital asset, so they want to amortise that cost over many campaigns. Creators argue that their likeness is their core asset, and giving up control forever is essentially selling a piece of themselves they can never get back. Luna: And the scary part is, once that digital asset exists, it can be replicated, modified, even licensed to third parties if the contract isn't airtight. So this isn't just about one brand — it's about the entire downstream use. Lucas: Right. And you know, this is a good moment to mention something small but real about how we keep this show going. We don't run ads, and that's intentional — we want these conversations to be as direct as possible. A handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that literally funds making this many of these. If these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used, that's where the door's open. Otherwise, let's get back to the clause. Luna: Yeah, it's a clean model — listener supported, no sponsor to answer to. And it lets us dig into stuff like this without pulling punches. Lucas: So back to Maya Chen's case. The beauty brand in question — I'm not naming them, but it's a well-known prestige cosmetics line — initially proposed a standard influencer agreement they'd been using for years. It had a typical 'right to use your image in perpetuity for marketing purposes' clause. That clause pre-dates AI clones. It was written back when 'use your image' meant a photograph or a video that was shot once and maybe reused in a catalog. Nobody was thinking about synthetic regeneration. Luna: So the creator's team essentially had to argue that the old clause, as written, would cover ai generated content even though neither side had contemplated it at signing. That's a legal grey area. Lucas: Exactly. Maya's solution was to carve out a new section specifically for 'Synthetic Likeness Use.' It defined a digital twin as a separate asset with its own term, its own compensation, and its own revocation mechanism. The brand gets to use it for two years, renewable by mutual agreement, and if the creator dies or the contract ends for any reason, the brand has ninety days to wind down any active campaigns using the digital twin, after which it must be permanently deleted. Luna: That ninety-day wind-down is interesting. It gives the brand time to transition without letting the asset linger indefinitely. But is that enforceable? If the brand has copies on backup servers, how do you verify deletion? Lucas: That's the next frontier. Maya told me they added a third-party audit clause — the creator can hire a forensic data examiner once a year to check that all copies have been purged. The brand covers the cost if the audit finds anything. If they don't cooperate, the creator gets to terminate the entire agreement and collect damages. It's aggressive, but it's becoming standard in top-tier deals. Luna: Let's talk about the economics for a mid-tier creator. We hear about these seven-figure deals, but what about someone with, say, 200,000 followers who gets approached by a smaller brand? Are they getting these clauses too? Lucas: Mostly not. And that's a problem. The smaller creators often sign standard influencer agreements from platforms like Aspire or Grin, and those templates don't have ai specific language yet. So a creator with 200,000 followers could unknowingly grant a brand the right to create a digital twin of them in perpetuity, simply because the contract says 'all media now known or hereafter devised.' That phrase is the trap. Luna: Hereafter devised. That's the language that covers future technologies. It was originally meant to protect studios when home video came along. Now it's being used to claim AI clones. Lucas: Precisely. And the thing is, most creators don't have a lawyer read their contracts. They use a dashboard, click accept, and move on. So the industry is seeing a divide: top-tier creators with legal teams are carving out protections, while everyone else is effectively signing away rights they don't even know they have. Luna: I read that sag aftra issued new guidance on this in April 2026. They specifically called out the 'hereafter devised' language and advised all members to demand a separate digital actor rider for every commercial endorsement. Lucas: That's right. The sag aftra guidance from April 14th — I have the bulletin open — says, and I'm paraphrasing, 'Any contract that does not explicitly define the scope of synthetic media use should be considered insufficient.' They recommend a rider that includes: a description of the digital twin's capabilities, a fixed term, a separate compensation floor, and a kill switch. The rider is only three pages, but it's already being adopted by major talent agencies. Luna: One prominent YouTuber I follow — I won't name them, but they have about 8 million subscribers — recently posted a video about their own contract negotiations. Their team now insists on a separate 'digital actor' rider for every campaign, even if the campaign doesn't plan to use AI. They say it's better to have it in place and not need it than to need it and not have it. Lucas: That's smart preventive lawyering. And it's going to become the norm. I talked to a brand-side lawyer at a large CPG company, and she said they're actually relieved that creators are asking for these riders. Because it forces both sides to have the conversation upfront, rather than six months later when someone's digital twin shows up in a market the creator never agreed to. Luna: What about the ethical dimension? Even if the contract is airtight, is it okay to put words in a creator's mouth that they never actually said? Consumers might feel deceived. Lucas: That's the big open question. And some brands are already getting pushback. There was a case late last year — a fitness influencer's AI clone was used to promote a detox tea in a market where she had specifically said she wouldn't endorse that product. Even though the contract technically allowed it, the backlash was so intense that the brand pulled the campaign and apologised. The reputational risk is real. Luna: So the clause isn't just about legal rights — it's about brand safety for both sides. A creator who feels exploited will voice that, and the brand's reputation takes the hit. Lucas: Exactly. The best contracts now include a 'moral rights' clause that says the digital twin cannot be used in contexts that would harm the creator's reputation, as determined by a mutually agreed third party. That's rare right now, but Maya Chen says it's the next thing she's pushing for. Luna: Where do you see this going in the next year? Are we heading toward a standardised AI clone addendum that every creator uses, the way model release forms are standardised? Lucas: I think so. The sag aftra rider is a step in that direction. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of 2027, every influencer contract has a separate page for synthetic media, with boilerplate language that's been tested in court. But for now, it's still the wild west. If you're a creator listening, the single most important thing you can do is read your contract for the phrase 'all media now known or hereafter devised.' If you see it, ask for it to be struck or amended before you sign. Luna: And if you're a brand, the lesson is that overreaching now will cost you trust later. The creators who are savvy enough to negotiate these clauses are also the ones whose audiences are most loyal. Burn that trust, and the digital twin isn't worth much. Lucas: Well said. I think the takeaway is that AI clones aren't coming — they're here. And the contracts we write today will determine whether this technology empowers creators or exploits them. It's a small piece of text, that clause, but it has huge implications. Luna: I'd love to revisit this in six months and see how many creators have added that rider. My bet is it becomes as standard as a kill fee. Lucas: I'll take that bet. And until then, read your contracts.